


the prairie is vast (the train is quicker)

by teamfreehoodies



Series: Into the Jaskierverse [14]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Red Dead Redemption 2 Fusion, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Cowboy!Jaskier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Jaskier | Dandelion, Fluff, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon's Parent, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Good at Feelings, Good Parent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Shenanigans, Train Robbery, Wild West AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26818582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamfreehoodies/pseuds/teamfreehoodies
Summary: Geralt and Ciri are still trying everything they can to find Jaskier. After a... traumatizing split, they come back together in a new universe entirely. They're offered a chance to distract themselves from their worry over Jaskier, and the perilous journey they're on, by helping a female version of their favorite bard steal a wagon, rob a train, and, just maybe, come to terms with a worry that's been plaguing her.Featuring: much talk of guns, someone getting shot (on accident), a murder! (on purpose), Jaskier the Horse!girl, one (1) dissociative episode, one (1) panic attack (though not the same character), and just enough fluff and banter to even it all out.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Into the Jaskierverse [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895545
Comments: 23
Kudos: 127





	the prairie is vast (the train is quicker)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the next installment of Into the Jaskierverse. This is based on my forthcoming RDR2!Fusion fic, which is still being written, and will be written in its entirety before I post it. It's my baby and it's getting much love and attention right now, so it'll be awhile still before it's ready to be shared. In the meantime, please enjoy this teaser chapter of the universe I'm building, which is considered non!canonical to my eventual 'verse. If you've never written fanfic of your own unpublished fanfic, I highly recommend it. It's a blast! :D 
> 
> You do not need to know anything about Red Dead Redemption in order to enjoy this by the way, but there are a few easter eggs if you're a fan. :)
> 
> Title provided by the lovely KHansen, and anything you recognize is either an intentional reference to the fics in this series which came before mine, or canon, because when you have been given such fertile soil why would you not dig your hands into it?
> 
> Anything you don't recognize on the other hand, is more than likely obscure cowboy slang because why go western if you're not going whole-hog?

When the portal spits him out, Geralt hits dirt hard; his knees buckle beneath him, sending him sprawling across the ground and knocking his sword hilt painfully into his head. He’s still wet from the storm of the last world, still dazed from watching Jaskier fall— he blinks up at the sky and wonders just how many worlds he’s now at least partially responsible for having destroyed or changed irrevocably. He presses his fingertips into the cut across his palm, letting the blood drip out from between his clenched fingers as he stares up at the clear blue sky above him. It’s unfairly beautiful for the place he's just left, for the darkness of his thoughts, for the guilt heavy enough on his chest that the idea of rising to try and find Ciri, though necessary, feels impossible. 

Two worlds at least, The Watcher has chased them through, and who knows how many more its torn apart trying to find them; Geralt feels each potential lost life weighing against his bones as if it were a physical force, pressing him down into the hard-packed ground beneath his back. He hasn’t felt this despondent since those heavy years between Blaviken and Posada— meeting Jaskier had changed his life, given him back a purpose and reminded him that he was more than just the Butcher. He misses him— his Jaskier, the real one, the bard always ready with a comment that cuts straight to the heart of whatever is bothering Geralt, easy to laugh and easier to rile up, the casual running jokes and friendly insults and all the million little different ways that his Jaskier belonged with him— the ways they fit next to each other and around each other, entangling their lives so completely that without Jaskier by his side Geralt felt like half of himself, like something fundamental to who he was had been taken from him.

It’s been too long without him, and no word if he’s safe, no idea if he’s even still alive except for Ciri’s hope and his refusal to believe in even the possibility that Jaskier is—

It’s unthinkable, a horror so complete that even now he doesn’t want to imagine it, keeps watching the Jaskier he just failed to rescue fall, keeps pressing his fingers into the cut on his palm— time falls away from him, not meditation, but something close enough that he doesn’t notice the passing of hours even as the sun shifts across the sky. 

“Geralt?” The sun beats down against him, and he breathes out, then in. 

“Geralt?” A hand pushes against his chest, and he blinks as the sun is momentarily blotted out.

“Geralt, please! You're scaring me.” The world comes back to him, slowly bleeding in on his awareness; first the shadowed face of Ciri above him, teary and concerned, a cut just above her brow with dried blood around it— then the aches and pains of his body, flooding in so suddenly he gasps against the rush of sensation, sitting up in one movement that dislodges Ciri from where she was braced against his chest.

“Oh, thank the gods,” she mutters, thumping backwards to land on her arse, dropping her head into her palms. She laughs wetly, then drags her hands down her face and peers out from behind her fingers at him. “What happened?” 

He has to find some way to answer her, doesn’t he. 

His silence must stretch on too long, because Ciri crawls forward to throw her arms around him, sagging against his chest and burrowing her head into his neck. He forces his aching arms up to hold her tightly, feeling the phantom memory of Jaskier slipping from his grip and desperately sure that if he just holds on—if she doesn’t let go— he won’t ever lose her. 

“I guess I can go first,” she half-whispers into his stillness, her voice so small he almost doesn’t hear her. “We shouldn’t’ve split up, I don’t— I don’t really want to face anymore of these without you, I—” she pauses, huffs damply against his neck and then swallows loudly before continuing, “I was so worried that I had lost you, like I lost Jaskier and—” she cuts herself off, shaking her head sharply against his neck and squeezes him so tightly his armor creaks with the force of her grip. 

He shifts his grip to the back of her head, jolted back into his body because she needs him more than he needs to be freaking out right now. Pressing a kiss to her temple, he breathes in the comforting jade and chaos scent of Ciri. His Ciri, not any of the few others they’ve seen, just his daughter, real and in his arms finally. They’d been separated only a little over a day before he could get back to her, but with Jaskier still missing, and being outside of their own world, it was a day too long entirely. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs finally, the first words he’s spoken since landing here in this new world, and he feels the tension flood out of Ciri, her body going limp as she gives in to the stress and uncertainty of their travels, of whatever happened to her while they were separated. She sags against him and he hugs her tighter, inhaling the scent of home and love and family and letting it comfort him. 

“I just left a world where you and Jaskier were... really fucked up.” Ciri says eventually, pulling back to rub at her eyes. She sighs heavily, then brushes her hands over the cut above her eyebrow, brushing free a few errant flakes of dried blood. “Jaskier just tried to kill me, and that version of you was the only thing holding him—”

“Not Jaskier. He would never hurt you,” Geralt interrupts, unable to even conceive of a world in which that could be true. Jaskier loved Ciri, treated her like a sister and friend and daughter all in one. “He would rather die than cause you harm, Ciri, you have to know that.”

“I _do_ , I know, it just—” Ciri dashes more tears from her eyes, then smiles wryly and smacks her hands against her thighs, leaning forward to knock her forehead into her knees. “I just didn’t expect it,” she laughs lowly, then pushes her hair away from her face, leaving her hands buried in the silvery blonde locks, her elbows braced on her legs. “What about you? You clearly didn’t have a very good time without me either.” 

That’s an understatement, Geralt thinks, remembering briefly the place he just left. “The Watcher found me in a world where Stregobor had Jaskier and my counterpart hadn’t— hadn’t come to save him.” Yet. Geralt has to believe that his counterpart would have made it, would have been looking. To imagine otherwise is... uthinkable. 

Ciri makes a wounded noise and he reaches out to hold her hand, comforting her. It’s not that he forgets how much she loves Jaskier too, but it’s easy to be blinded by the depth of what Jaskier means to Geralt personally— for all that he’s Geralt’s best friend, he’s also Ciri’s and Yen’s and they’d _all_ be lost without him. “I got him out and killed that universe’s Stregobor, and a few other men besides, but Jaskier was— he was all alone and I couldn’t bear to leave him, so I was going to bring him with me but—” he cuts himself off, ruthlessly clenching his fist so the cut on his palm peels open again, the dried blood flaking off as new blood spills over it. It’s better to feel _that_ than the ghosting sensation of Jaskier’s palm slipping against his as he fell.

Ciri stiffens, obviously noticing the blood seeping out between his fingers, and she glares at him in warning as she reaches over and pulls his hand into her lap, already yanking bandages out of her pack. No use wasting a potion on something this small. Geralt breathes out sharply, unclenching his fist so Ciri can bandage it. 

“What happened here?” Ciri asks eventually, after she’s cleaned the cut with water from her canteen. Geralt waits until she starts wrapping it, putting his thoughts in some semblance of order. She twines the bleached fabric around his palm, then tucks the ends under the folds to secure it. He still hasn’t spoken. “Geralt?” Ciri shifts her grip on his hand so she’s cradling it, being careful not to put pressure on the cut. It’s nothing like the levels of pain he’s used to as a Witcher, doesn't even actually hurt in any way that Geralt typically measures these things. And yet.

“I tried to save him. It wasn’t _our_ Jaskier but it was still _him_ and I—” he cuts himself off, tries reflexively to clench his fist, but Ciri’s gentle hands keeps his own laid out flat on her lap. 

“Don’t do that,” she says, leaning over to look him in the eyes. “You’re going to mess up the bandage.” 

He hums at her admonishment, but relents, letting his hands relax, and then consciously dropping the tension from his shoulders and neck as well. The world around them is still bright and sunny and if Jaskier was here he’d have the proper words for what the sunlight did to the grass or how the wind sounded as it gently slid by them. He releases a shaky exhale, determined to move past this. He may have let down that Jaskier, but his Jaskier, the Jaskier that belongs at his side, is still out there somewhere, and they still need to find him. 

“The Jaskier I was trying to save, saved me instead. He cut me so I would let him go and actually get out in time. The Watcher destroyed their entire universe, Ciri. I felt it rip their world to shreds.” Ciri releases his hand, both of hers flying up to cover her shocked wide open mouth.

“It can do that?” she gasps, dropping her hands to grasp at the grass, clearly just as unexpectedly unmoored by the knowledge of what’s happening behind them as Geralt was.

“The Watcher was doing something to that world, consuming it, I think. It felt _wrong_.” Geralt tells her, watching carefully to see how she takes the news. 

She’s been blaming herself for Jaskier being caught in the portal, and he doesn’t want her to take this on her shoulders as well. The horror of The Watcher belongs to Stregobor and Stregobor only: Ciri, if anything, is actively doing what she can to stop it. The faster they find Jaskier the sooner they can stop The Watcher from destroying anything else. 

“ _Gods_ , I didn’t know...” she trails off, clearly remembering just how many worlds they’ve been through now, trying to track down Jaskier. “Do you think— it can’t be doing that to all of them, can it?” she asks, grief crackling at the edge of her words. 

“No.” It’s a reflexive denial, but he believes it fully. “It only caught us in two, remember?” He spares a brief thought for the world with the version of them in some kind of band, a ragtag family with Eskel and Ashwood and a version of him and Jaskier that was together and in love and _happy_ : He aches for them and how they left them, fighting off The Watcher and the vestiges of chaos as it bent around their music. But they’d survived, he was sure of it. The Watcher had spared that world, for some reason beyond Geralt’s knowledge.

The last world though— that Jaskier’s eyes flash in his mind again and he shakes his head roughly to dispel the errant thoughts. He has to let the grief go. His Jaskier is still alive, and he can’t do anything for the last one but hope it was a merciful ending, hope the end of their world came quickly for every being that lived there. 

“I think it’s only destroyed one world behind us. It must be able to go for a while without— doing whatever that was.” Geralt watches the subtle tension fall out of Ciri’s posture as she accepts his words.

“This is so _fucked!_ ” She exclaims suddenly, flopping backwards to lay flat in the grass, “I can’t believe this is happening.” 

Geralt agrees, silently, and turns to observe the scenery around them, eager to direct his attention to anything else for the time being; They’re surrounded by flat plains stretching out as far as he can see. The tall grasses are not dissimilar to the fields of Aedirn, and he wonders briefly if that’s where they are. A surprising number of the worlds they’ve bounced through have been fairly similar to their own— in geography at least if not in anything else, he thinks, suddenly remembering the many worlds where Jaskier has been a witcher instead of a bard, or some kind of creature instead of human.

The grass rustles in the gentle wind and Geralt misses Roach with an aching fierceness that surprises him. This is perfect riding weather, and he wishes for the chance to stretch her legs, galloping across all this cleared land. He takes a second to look around them, trying to identify any landmarks, but besides the mountains rising to the west of them, and what looks like a forest several kilometers due south, there’s nothing on the horizon. Although, there is something slowly growing in size on the eastern horizon. It looks like a rider, approaching at a fairly sedate pace, but as Geralt watches, they put on some speed. He keeps an eye on the approaching figure as they get closer, impressed again at how expansive this field is. He can see ten times as far as any mortal man, but even for him the plains disappear into the horizon, meeting the vibrant blue sky and offering the impression of endless space. It’s at once invigorating and frightfully lonely, and Geralt thinks Jaskier would have a million and one things to say about its beauty if he were here.

Ciri sighs loudly from her position lying flat on the ground and then rolls over and sits up on her elbows so they’re both facing the same direction. “I thought I picked up Jaskier’s signature here, but—” she throws one hand out to gesture at the expansive emptiness all around them. “Maybe I’m getting worse at this,” she finishes sardonically, dropping her head to the ground.

“I don’t think so. What would you bet that’s going to be this world’s Jaskier?” He asks, nudging Ciri’s side until she sits up, scrambling to her knees to look at the blob he’s pointing out to her. 

“Hmm,” she hums, squinting and then raising one hand to block the sun from her eyes. “I don’t know, we usually seem to find versions of you first.” 

Geralt grimaces, uncomfortably reminded of all the strange iterations of himself they’ve encountered. It was one thing to catch his reflection in a mirror, but to actually stare down a real separate instance of himself? It’s like being forced to interact with the Continent’s worst Doppler, just off enough that Geralt can’t ignore the differences, can’t ignore the similarities. There were some things not meant for semi-mortal eyes.

The blob has resolved itself to a horse with a rider on top, but at this distance Geralt can’t see much detail beyond the color and breed. It’s a beautiful, dappled black thoroughbred, and Geralt mentally readjusts his impression of the coming rider. They come from money of some sort if they're riding a horse like that. As they get closer, Geralt can start picking out more details. They have long hair, tucked up under a— well Geralt doesn’t really know how to describe the hat that the rider (woman? The closer she gets the more clear it becomes that yes, they are indeed being approached by a female rider) is wearing, except that the brim is wide enough to cast its shade across her shoulders as well as her face and that the top has a divot in the middle for some unfathomable reason. Geralt has the inane worry that that might collect rainwater (is that the purpose?) before the rider is upon them, clattering to a stop a respectable distance from them and holding one hand to that strange hat to keep it in place. 

“Geralt? What in the _blazes_ are you wearing?” Well, that’s not new. Geralt is starting to get tired of the comments on his attire. By his accounting this woman is dressed far more strangely than he is. She’s wearing blue jeans like they saw in the first universe The Watcher caught them in, and a white shirt with buttons down the front underneath a bright blue satin vest with an intricately woven silver pattern that catches the light pleasantly and shifts with her movements. 

“Could ask the same of you.” He replies, wincing slightly as Ciri steps on his foot. Damn, her boot heels are sharper than Jaskier’s. 

“Well, I admit it’s not the latest fashion, but I ain’t exactly had time to pursue the catalogues on account of the goddamn Katakans and all.” She retorts, glancing down at her strange shirt and then back up at them. Her voice is surprising: this is the first potential-counterpart they’ve met without a familiar accent, and the slight punchy twang is as shocking as anything they’ve encountered so far. The way she says his name is... _wrong_ too. The first syllable strangely stretched in her mouth— just another reminder that she isn’t who they’re looking for. She leans over the pommel, flicking her hat slightly up her forehead with one thumb. “You sure everything is alright? I thought you took the little ones up towards Strawberry.” The woman takes a chance to look over Ciri then, and frowns, sitting back up slowly. _Ahh fuck_ , Geralt hates this part.

“Look, we mean no harm,” Ciri starts, which thus far has worked exactly zero times to stave off the instant suspicion, and yes, it’s not working now either. Geralt sighs, settling into a ready stance as the woman’s hand drops down to her hip. Geralt doesn’t see any short swords, but it’s not the first time he’s underestimated where a woman could hide a weapon. 

“That’s exactly what someone planning harm would tell me,” the woman says slowly, pulling her hand away from her hip to reveal she’s holding a— Geralt falters, trying to make sense of the strange shape in the woman’s hand. The shape is of something bent, maybe a curved pipe of some sort— an oversized tree tap? It doesn’t make any sense for her to be brandishing it at them as if it’s any threat, but she clearly thinks it is. It’s not the first time something from one of these worlds has turned out to be deadlier than it first appeared though, so Geralt stays vigilant. 

“There’s been a misunderstanding I think,” he offers, taking a cautious step forward. The stillness of the prairie shatters, ripped apart by a sudden _bang!_ Geralt and Ciri both jump, looking around for the source of the horrible noise. A perfect hole is now in the ground in front of them, and Geralt’s ears are still ringing as he meets the eyes of the woman on the horse. The contraption in her hand is smoking, and she’s smirking at them both. 

“I don’t take too kindly to folks what don’t listen,” she says, then spins the noise stick in her hand around her index finger and slips it back into the pocket at her hip, which seems to be made of blackened leather, (Geralt mentally recalculates several things about her including that she’s apparently even more wealthy than he thought, as well as a fucking _maniac_ ) and then hops off her horse. It’s the smoothest dismount Gerat has seen from anyone riding a horse that tall. He’s almost surprised when she lands to find that she easily clears the horse’s shoulder. He’d been expecting her to be much shorter for some reason.

“What was that?!” Ciri shouts, hands still cupped slightly around her ears where she’d instinctively flinched to protect them. Geralt straightens up too, staying ready just in case this woman is still a threat to them. 

“What, you ain’t never been shot at before?” The woman answers, hand still hovering near her hip. She’s clearly just as wary of them as they are of her. 

“Well that’s the thing,” Ciri says, soothing her tone and trying for a more even-keeled approach, “We’re not really from this world.”

The woman gives Ciri an odd look, but she must decide they’re safe enough because she drops her hand from her hip and strides forward, coming to a stop just outside of Geralt’s reach with his sword. _She’s good_ , he thinks, reluctantly impressed with her awareness. She’s not a Triss or Yennefer counterpart, and clearly she’s not a different Ciri either. Her face does look surprisingly familiar though, but he’s having a hard time placing it. The slope of her nose, and the slight pout to her mouth put him in mind of someone— but who?

She tips her hat back again, and her cornflower blue eyes sparkle in the sunlight as she looks between Ciri and Geralt. 

“Sorry about the posturing, but the resemblance really is uncanny like,” she says over the ringing in Geralt’s ears. Geralt could say the same thing to her, he thinks stupidly, staring into those eyes he’d know anywhere. “You mind explaining what you’re doing wearing the faces of people I know damn well aren't on this side of the state?” she asks, resting her hands on the oversized belt around her waist. It’s as clear a threat as anything she’s done since walking up to them.

“We’re looking for our friend. He got lost and we’ve been trying to track him down.” Ciri answers, digging a pointy elbow into Geralt’s side subtly as well. He winces, pulling away from her but he gets her message and he relaxes his own stance, holding his hands out in an attempt to appear non-threatening. 

“We’re not from around here,” he starts—

“Well, ya don’t say,” the woman cuts him off, gesturing broadly at their clothes. “Never saw such detailed costumes outside the theater. Y’all part of the circus?” Geralt opens his mouth to explain, but she’s still talking, ignoring him completely. “Course, that don’t account for the faces, then.” She frowns at them, then seems to come to some kind of conclusion because she drops the frown and smiles brightly, sticking a hand out as if to shake. “Never met a cowpoke I couldn’t charm eventually, name’s Jaskier, I can maybe help you find your friend there, if’n you tell me how you came to be lost on the prairie. I know a story when I see one, and you, my good sir, look to be chock full of ‘em.” 

Geralt reaches out to shake her hand stunned by the revelation of her name and the sheer amount of words she’d thrown at them without pausing to take a breath— she’s chattier than the Jaskier he’s used to, but she still uses the same patterns, the same timbre, hell, even the same intonation, everything exactly the same except for that damned accent— it’s strangely reassuring even as it’s a stark reminder of what he’s missing.

“I’m Geralt, and this is my daughter, Ciri,” he offers, noting the way her smile slips into a confused frown as she bounces her gaze between the two of them.

“Alright Geralt, and Ciri. Do you mind filling me in on why you’re out here on your lonesome? And how you’ve stolen my friends faces and names would also be... much appreciated information while you’re at it.” 

“Ah, we’re not dopplers, no stolen faces here,” Ciri interjects, stepping closer to the other woman. The horse squeals, tossing its head and pinning its ears back at her movement, but the woman grabs the reins before the mare gets too agitated, calming it absently as she stares them both down, confusion and suspicion overwriting her elfin features. Is his Jaskier’s nose that sharply sloped? 

“I don’t rightly know what medieval century y’all dropped out of, but I’m losing patience for whatever nonsense you’re trying to pull.” Jaskier tosses the reins over the pommel of her saddle, then crosses her arms to frown more effectively at them. It really shouldn't be as intimidating as it is.

Ciri catches Geralt’s eye, mouthing ‘medieval?’ at him silently. “No, nothing to do with... that,” she says out loud, still carefully maintaining her distance from the skittish horse. “If you don’t have magic here that does kind of make this explanation harder though.” 

Jaskier perks up, taking half a step away from her horse in her excitement. “Magic? I’ve been trying to talk to Yennefer for half a fortnight now, are y’all wizards too?” 

“Oh! You have a Yennefer?” Ciri replies, matching the excitement level pouring off of Jaskier. “We have a Yennefer in our universe, but we haven’t actually met many versions of her yet.” Geralt very carefully doesn’t think of the Yennefer that kicked them out of Kaer Morhen, doesn’t imagine the pain of the people his counterpart had left behind and what unintentional misery he’d inflicted on them by being there when he shouldn’t have been. 

“Y’all are just like her, always talking nonsense.” Jaskier mutters, picking her hat up off her head and wiping one arm across her forehead. “Listen,” she starts, looking at a strange device she’s pulled from the front of her vest pocket, and raising her eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t know where you’re from or why you look just like the Geralt and Ciri I know, who are supposed to be clear over the mountains by now, but I think we can probably help each other regardless.” She puts the device away, blinking up at them and awaiting their verdict.

Well, that’s straightforward enough, Geralt looks at Ciri and finds the same answer written on her face. Clearly they haven’t found their Jaskier, but they’ve at least found a version of him, (and how strange, that she’s, well that she’s female, when none of the other different versions of themselves they’ve encountered have noticeably varied in this way) and they need at least two days for Ciri to rest anyways. They can offer their help while Ciri’s magic recharges. And maybe they can learn more about this strange world while they do it. 

Geralt reaches forward to shake her hand, finding it strangely rough in ways that are more aligned with his own hand than the lute-callouses he’s used to from his bard. He wonders if she plays music here in this world, then shies away from imaging any Jaskier without it.

“How’d you get all the way out here without a horse anyways?” Jaskier continues, releasing his hand after a quick shake to resettle her horse’s tack and saddle. She glances over at Geralt, then skims her eyes over to Ciri, waiting for an answer. 

“Uh, magic?” Ciri answers, confused despite herself. It’s still not clear whether this world has magic or not, and this Jaskier’s demeanour is harder to read than their own. “We portalled in from another universe, it’s not... precise,” she settles on, grimacing at Jaskier. 

Jaskier looks askance at them then mutters something too low for a human to hear, but Witcher ears pick it up perfectly fine. 

“We’re not crazy,” Geralt tries a comforting smile, suspecting that this world must have Witchers as well, given how generally unafraid she’s been of his appearance— she’d only indicated confusion over his clothes, not his eyes or hair or skin or even the unnatural sharpness of his canines, which even his own Jaskier had gasped over seeing (smelling strangely of lust, but well— his Jaskier often smelled of lust.) “We really are from a different world.”

She turns sharply to stare at him suspiciously. “You heard that?” Then, when Geralt simply raises an eyebrow in answer, “‘course you heard that, damn wizards hear everything. Alright,” she exclaims, faux brightly, “Guess I’m gonna take you at your word for it, and as welcome to my universe I suppose I should let you ride the rest of the way and I’ll just follow along.” She gestures to Ciri as she says this, indicating the newly adjusted stirrups. _Ah_ , so that’s what she had been doing. “You can ride, and me 'n the big guy'll hoof it.” 

“Or, I could make us a portal?” Ciri offers, staring distrustfully at the angry horse. Jaskier seems blissfully unaware of the mood her mare is in; the thoroughbred could put Roach to shame in terms of expressing unhappiness. 

“Right, you did mention the magic.” Jaskier muses, clicking her tongue and then turning back to readjust the stirrups again. “ _Ahh_ , it’s alright Pegasus, guess you're just stuck with boring ole’ me as a rider today, huh?” 

Ciri is pointedly not looking at Geralt, but he can still see the smile fighting to make itself shown on her face. He rolls his eyes and gently knocks into her shoulder with his own, content to endure her gentle teasing. There’s nothing wrong with conversing with your horse. They need companionship too, after all. 

Once Jaskier is settled atop Pegasus she points decisively southwest. “Reckon you can take us over there? I’ve gotta meet a man about an oil wagon.” 

Ciri shades her eyes to look at the horizon, estimating the distance. “Yeah, I have power enough for at least one jump in-world. Have you been to this place before?” 

“What, you mean Ban Ard Oil & Kerosene? Ay yuh, I’ve been by the yard before. I’ve damn near ridden every mile of this godforsaken state to my everlasting consternation.” She grimaces at them, then readjusts that strange hat again. “How’s this work, then? I don’t think my Yenn can make portals here. Leastwise, I ain’t never seen one and you think that’s the kind of thing a friend'd tell you about.” 

“Just picture the place we need to go, and I’ll pull the location from you and— sort of fold space between here and there.” Ciri illustrates two points being brought closer with her hands, and Jaskier raises one eyebrow and then smiles indulgently at Ciri.

“You can read minds too? Yenn has been holding out on me!'' She rolls her eyes, shaking a pretend fist at Yennefer, then shakes her shoulders out and tips her chin up, looking for all the world as if she were preparing to take a hit. “Hit me with it, then, I’m ready.” she says, then braces, scrunching her face up comically. Geralt stifles half a laugh then has to look away from Ciri before he loses it entirely, turning to face forward with Pegasus. At least the horse is ready to go. 

Ciri’s portal spins open in front of them, and Geralt chances a look back to see her positioned to hold it, while Jaskier watches, whipping her head back and forth between the portal and Ciri. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she says, then spurs Pegasus to get the horse through the portal. To Pegasus’s credit, she only hesitates at the edge, doesn’t rear, and simply requires a gentle word from Jaskier before she steps through. Geralt braces himself, hating the feeling and hating just how many damned portals they’ve had to travel through, but follows quickly, turning back around to watch Ciri as she slips through after them. It snaps shut behind her, and she stumbles, raising one hand to grip her head. Geralt catches her elbow, holding her up, and pushes back against the bubble of dread rising in his chest. 

They’ve been doing this for so long, he’s starting to lose track of the days, every world blurring together in his memory so it’s hard to keep them distinct, difficult to recall just how long they’ve been chasing after their Jaskier— how long have they been running from Stregobor, running from The Watcher? When will they finally find their bard? 

He squashes the moment of weakness ruthlessly, breathing out once, sharply, against the force of it. There’s no time for this, not when Jaskier is in danger, not when Ciri is struggling, not when they aren’t safe, together, like they should be. Ciri pats his chest, a solidly firm reminder that at least she’s here with him, at least they aren’t all split apart from each other. He lets her go, stepping back with one final squeeze to offer some semblance of comfort. They’ll just have to keep trying and hope for the best. They’ll find him eventually. They have to. 

How big can the universe really be?

  
  


Ciri and Jaskier have already started walking, talking quietly, and Geralt shakes himself out of his wandering thoughts to join them. He’s slipping. The exhaustion and stress are getting to him; he needs to sleep, real sleep, not just meditation— he won’t be able to find Jaskier if he ends up dead from a careless mistake before they can track him down. 

He takes in their new location as he walks, scoping out the large structure surrounded by wooden fencing just off to the left of where Ciri dropped them. They’re on a rise several kilometers above and away from it, close enough for Geralt’s witcher eyes to make out detail, but far enough away that a human wouldn’t be able to see the same. The roof is strange, some kind of vaguely metallic looking material that Geralt has never seen before. It’s thinner than steel or iron, but it’s not wood or thatching— curious.

Ignoring the oddity of the building itself for a moment, he observes what little of the fenced-in yard he can see, a row of wooden carts unhooked from their horses, stacks of barrels, and some kind of— metal contraption? It’s huge, looking almost like a well-pump, but blown up and made thicker, more complicated. It’s confusing to look at, so Geralt elects to ignore it as well, looking instead to where Jaskier and Ciri are waiting for him beneath a copse of trees. Jaskier has dismounted, and is busy pulling things from her horse; as Geralt walks up she spares him a distracted smile. 

“Gotta ditch the horse before we get much closer, but after that we’re in for a bit of a wait. Don’t want to try anything against them until later on.” She informs him, still pulling bits and pieces from her saddle. “Here” she says, shoving a long half-wood, half-metal contraption into Geralt’s chest. “That oughta do you a damn sight better than your swords.” 

Geralt holds it out from his chest to examine it, trying to get a feel for the balance of it. It’s— objectively horrible. There’s no sharp edge, no counterweight; it clearly isn’t meant to be thrown, or wielded like a blade, and yet she had offered it to him in place of his own weapon. 

“What is this?” he asks finally, observing the button and lever contraption resting where the metal gives way to wood. He pushes the button, surprised when nothing happens. Jaskier looks up at him, opening her mouth to answer. But he can’t hear her over the thing violently and suddenly _exploding_ in his hands with a _bang!_ that splits the air as it jumps wildly out of his grip.

Almost simultaneously, Jasker yells in pain, Ciri shouts in fear, and Geralt claps his hands to his ears, overwhelmed by the sudden noise and chaos. Geralt tries to rise from where he’s fallen in the commotion, worried for Jaskier who’s lying on the ground clutching her arm and cursing up a storm. 

“I can’t believe you fucking _shot me_ , have you never used a goddamn gun before?” she yells, catching sight of him as he crawls over to her side. 

“What?” he shouts back, struggling to hear her over the ringing in his ears, already attempting to pull her hand from the wound so he can look at it. She must have caught some shrapnel from the explosion, whatever the fuck had caused it. “I didn’t shoot you,” he says, finally registering her words. “It exploded. Must have been defective.” 

He can feel the force of her incredulity as she stares open mouthed at him, but he ignores it, unsure what he’s said to have garnered such a reaction. At least when his Jaskier looks at him like that he usually knows _why_.

“I’m sorry, did you just shoot me and then call my rifle _defective_?” Geralt motions for Ciri to hand him his pack, pulling out the bandages one handed, as he keeps pressure on her upper arm with the other. “Where do you get off shooting a lady and then trying to tell her the goddamn gun you shot her with is _defective!_?” Jaskier tries to yank her arm out of Geralt’s grip, clearly upset with him, but Geralt holds fast, refusing to let go until she’s not actively bleeding anymore. 

“I didn’t—” he stops, frustrated with trying to get her to understand, and then finally ties off the ends of the first bandage. It's only a slight cut, just shallow enough to avoid stitches— whatever shrapnel had hit her it must have been a glancing blow. Would have been healed in minutes if she was one of the Witcher Jaskiers they’d seen, or if it was Hyacinth even, but this one seems very human. And very mad. “I didn’t have a bow.” Geralt tries again, frustrated by her refusal to just explain herself plainly. 

“Oh god, _what are you talking about?_ The gun! Have you never seen a gun before?” She asks, finally dropping the hostility from her tone. 

“Gun?” Ciri pipes up, from where she’s busy poking at the cause of all this current misery. 

“Yes, a gun, it’s that thing—” Jaskier cuts herself off, seeing Ciri about to pick up the contraption. 

“Oh, no don’t!” she shouts, and Ciri stops, one hand hovering just over the metal part of the supposed gun. “Sorry, it’s just, that’s still going to be a little hot. Don’t grip it there.”

Ciri grabs it by the wood instead, making sure to receive a nod of permission from Jaskier first before she lifts it. “Don’t touch the trigger or the hammer and, for the love of _god_ , don’t point the barrel at anyone here. I thought y’all could shoot. Wouldn't have brought you along if I knew you didn’t know what a _gun_ was.” 

“This is a gun?” Ciri asks, lifting the contraption up slightly to indicate she’s discussing it.

“Yes, ma’am. More specifically, that’s a rifle. A genuine Lichtenfeld to boot, gifted to me by an old friend. You ain’t got guns in your universe?” she asks, testing out her range of motion in the injured arm. Geralt looks between the gun and the bandages around her arm, and has to swallow against the acrid guilt crawling up his throat. _Fuck_. He _had_ shot her.

“I’m sorry,” he offers gruffly, trying to push through the heated shame. He’d hurt Jaskier, never mind that this one wasn’t his or that it had been an accident: it had happened, and it shouldn't have, and now Geralt can't look away from her arm, peering concernedly at the bandage to try and gauge if it’s tight enough. Is that blood showing through or is he just imagining the shadow seeping through the cloth? Jaskier shrugs, then hisses through her teeth, one hand coming up to hover awkwardly over the wound.

“Ugh, _god_ , I haven’t been shot in a while, plumb-near forgot what that felt like,” she hisses, then shakes her head, looking around for her horse. Pegasus had bolted when the gun had gone off, but she hadn’t gone very far, still within eyesight of her rider. Well-trained. Good sign. Jaskier whistles sharply, and Pegasus comes trotting right back up to them. 

“Hey, wait,” Ciri says, staring at the leather holster on Jaskier’s hip. “ _You_ shot at _us_ first! Isn’t that a gun too?” she points at the holster and Jaskier follows her finger, then smiles back up at them sheepishly.

“Alright, yeah, guess that’s fair.” She spits on her palm then holds it out to Geralt as if to shake. “Call it even?” 

Geralt looks at her hand, looks at Ciri who only offers a bewildered shrug, and then shrugs himself and grips her spit-covered palm. It’s not the grossest thing he’s ever touched, though he can’t imagine what purpose this ritual has. 

This universe is already so godsdamned weird, might as well just go with it.

She releases his hand after a quick shake, then steps over to greet Pegasus who’s finally come back to them. Ciri creeps closer, still holding the gun (thankfully not pointed at anyone) and they both wait patiently for Jaskier to finish kissing Pegasus gently on her nose.

“Alright,” Jaskier proclaims, clapping her hands together and turning back around to face them. “Enough jawin'. Eskel is scoping out the tracks already and we’re meant to be collecting the damned oil wagon, but I can’t rightly get in there 'til dusk when the line riders switch over for the night hawks. I’ve got enough iron here to go ‘round, but if y’all don’t know how to shoot I might haveta’ teach ya’ first. Just lucky we got the daylight for it.” She props her fisted hands on her hips, then looks brightly between the two of them. “Any takers? Haven't had a real chance to go shooting for the hell of it in ages.” 

Ciri looks thoughtfully at the gun in her hands. Geralt gently takes it from her, ignoring her pout to hand it back to Jaskier. “Maybe we shouldn’t. We wouldn’t want to make any more noise than we already have.” 

“Noise ain't a problem. Ain't nobody gonna think twice about something like that. If they even notice, they’ll just chock it up to some hunters.” Jaskier gestures expansively at the woods behind them, “Big game is pretty easy to find ‘round these parts. I took down an albino buffalo myself just across the way there, not too recently. Yennefer’s got the pelt still. If you’re around later to meet her I’m sure she wouldn’t mind showing you.” 

Geralt perks up, a little bit interested, but Ciri answers for both of them before he can say anything, “I actually don’t think we’ll have time for that. We’ve got to leave as soon as we can to find our friend.” 

Jaskier drops her shoulders in clear disappointment, but she smiles gently at Ciri to soften it. “You must really miss him, huh? What’s their name? Maybe I’ve seen 'em.”

“You’d know if you had seen him. Remember how we said we’re from a different world?”

“Ah, you meant that literally?”

“Uh,” Ciri falters, smiling quizzically at Jaskier, “yeah, we’re literally from a world with magic and monsters and our friend got separated from us while we were trying to escape one of them. He’s— well he’s you, just, our version of you.” 

" _He_ , you said?” 

“Yup, our Jaskier is a traveling bard and he’s been Geralt’s best friend since they met when he was...” Ciri trails off looking to Geralt to fill in for her.

Geralt has to clear his throat before he can answer. “Eighteen.” Nearly all of Jaskier's life, and he's spent it chasing Geralt around the continent.

“Weird,” Jaskier offers, looking thoughtfully down at her chest. Geralt politely averts his gaze, watching Ciri instead as she continues her explanation.

“Right, so for the better part of his life he’s been traveling with Geralt and when Geralt claimed me as his daughter he became one of my best friends too, and— it’s my fault he’s lost at all, so we really cannot afford to lose any time in finding him.” 

“Hey,” Geralt interrupts, gently shaking Ciri’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault. The Watcher had hold of him; for all we know him getting caught in the portal actually _saved_ his life.” He's not sure she believes him. The more worlds they cycle through, the less he's starting to believe it himself. “Ciri’s magic needs a cool-down time before we can hop to the next universe where he might be,” he says to Jaskier, continuing on despite his sudden darker mood, “but we’re happy to offer assistance where we can.” At least doing something would make the necessary downtime feel productive. Besides, it wasn’t like this Jaskier was going to stop and just hang out with them in a camp somewhere for two days. 

Geralt was rather starting to like her, despite himself. She was fundamentally Jaskier in every way that mattered, but the circumstances of her life and the world she lived in were surprisingly fascinating. If they weren’t on such a time crunch, Geralt thinks he’d enjoy spending more time here.

“I’m so sorry you guys have lost him— me— well no, _him_.” Jaskier stutters, grimacing slightly at her stumbling words. “I could— I guess I could set aside the heist?” she sounds so fucking miserable at the idea, even as she’s offering it, that Geralt almost wants to laugh. Ciri does actually laugh, a happy one this time, and Geralt lets the warmth of it fill up his lungs. 

“We’re more than happy to help you with your heist. Neither one of us do very well with inaction.” Ciri offers.

“Oh, _fantastic_!” Jaskier claps her hands together, visibly vibrating with her excitement. “You’re going to have to learn to shoot though, ‘specially if you want to run the actual job with us. No space for fancy swordwork in a train car, but don’t tell Renfri I said that.” 

“Renfri?” A strangely hollow sensation is eating up his chest— yet another world where she survived, another world where he could have— where he _did_ make a better choice. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could go back and relive that day; a do-over to save a life he should have fought harder for. 

“Yeah, y’all got a Renfri too? I oughta tell you, she could murder me dead and I’d meet my maker happy, but uhh, don’t tell her I said that neither.” Jaskier says this while crossing herself and smiling, mischief sparkling in her eyes. Ciri laughs in response, clearly shocked, clapping a hand over her mouth to contain the sharp sound.

“We did.” Geralt replies, and then can’t say anything else about it. Ciri's laughter echoes strangely in his hears, and he wants desperately to move away from this topic as quickly as possible.

“Right,” Jaskier says, staring sadly between the two of them. “I’m sorry. But hey, look! Why don’t we go shooting? It’ll cheer you up! Promise once you stop shooting innocent folk who did nothing to deserve it, it becomes a lot more fun.” She grins an evil grin, glaring pointedly at Geralt. He flushes, shifting uncomfortably and fighting a strange heat in his cheeks and a weird urge to smile in response. He thinks she might be _flirting_ with him.

“How do we start?” Ciri asks, shifting the gun up to lean against her shoulder, nudging Geralt's side in silent support against Jaskier's teasing.

“The way all good things start," Jaskier smiles, looking Geralt up and down— _definitely flirting then—_ "a little bit of effort and whole lotta' time."

She smirks at Geralt (he's definitely blushing, what the fuck,) and then laughs when Ciri gags, muttering darkly under her breath. "Come on, sugar, let's go find us something to shoot."

* * *

They spend most of the daylight hours in the woods, learning how to shoot and, in Ciri’s case especially, taking great pleasure in the violence of it. Jaskier had given Ciri something called a revolver, which she cautioned had a limited range of efficacy, but was fantastic in a duel. When Geralt had asked exactly how many duels Jaskier had been a part of, she’d smiled and had both of her guns out of their holsters and pointed at Geralt’s chest almost faster than he could track. He was starting to appreciate just how dangerous this version of his friend really was. 

Geralt had been given something Jaskier called a “shotgun” which seemed like a silly name to Geralt— isn’t that what every gun did? Jaskier had laughed like a particularly deranged cuckoo bird when he asked her this, but not explained anything further about it. It was a good gun. Geralt was starting to like it, effective as it was. 

By dusk they were all a little bit deafer, but Geralt at least was starting to get used to the loud noise these weapons made. They came back to the rise they had started from, and Jaskier gave Pegasus an apple from her saddlebags before she slapped the horse’s rear and sent her running.

“She’ll come back later after we get the wagon.” Jaskier explains, coming to crouch next to Geralt and Ciri where they were both watching the distant building. 

“The guard is switching over soon. I’ve been casing the place for a few weeks now and they always leave the side gate untended. I figure Geralt can give me a boost over the fence, an’ I’ll let you in from the other side.” 

“What would you have done if we didn’t show up?” Geralt asks, frowning at the distant fence. It’s almost eight feet tall. 

“Oh, I would have used Pegasus’s saddle as a jumping off point,” she shrugs nonchalantly, then pulls out a pair of binoculars to peer through them at the building. “Here” she chirps, handing them over. “I think we’re clear of snipers, but double-check me to be sure.” 

“Snipers?” Geralt asks, handing the binoculars down to Ciri. He can see perfectly fine. 

“Yeah, they’ve got the range with their Rolling Blocks to cut us down as we cross the field if they spot us.” She pats one hand to the bottom of the gun on her back, “Long distance shooting is hard enough when it’s light out, I’m hoping they won’t have bothered with it, but I spied a fella’ on the roof last week when I checked and ya’ never know.” Geralt is reluctantly impressed with the sheer amount of words she can expel in one breath, and scans the roof as she had asked. No bodies, and none visible in the yard. But then, he hadn’t seen any when it was light out either. They might have just not been in the particular sightline this advantage offered them. 

“I don’t see anyone,” Ciri pipes up, passing the binoculars back. Geralt dutifully passes them along, then readjusts his grip on the shotgun. He’d rather have his swords, but Jaskier had insisted.

“Alright then, fellas.” Jaskier says, grinning widely at them, her teeth a shock of white in the dimming light. “Time to steal a wagon.” 

She takes off, running crouched over towards the building, with Ciri and Geralt following closely after her.

When they reach the fence Jaskier slings her rifle over her shoulder, then double-checks her holsters are clipped shut. “Right,” she exclaims, bouncing slightly on the soles of her feet and smiling at Geralt. “Gimme a boost.” Geralt braces his back against the fence, then cups his palms together, giving her a place to step. It’s the work of a quick moment to heave her up the fence, and he only has to hold it for a second before her weight shifts and then she’s disappeared over the top of the wooden barrier. Geralt hears a low thud, followed by a whispered, “ _ow_ ," and then the gate rattles slightly, before it clicks and falls open an inch towards them. Jaskier’s head peeks out from the gap, smiling fit to split her face as she gestures them inside. Once Ciri clears the door, Jaskier gently pulls it closed, then quietly slides the lock back home. She gestures them over to a hiding space behind a stack of wooden boxes then points round the front corner of the building. 

“There’s a guard just on the other side of that,” she whispers, “I’ll take him out, and then it’s a clear shot to the front yard. The wagon we’re looking for is already hitched. It’s one of the overnight deliveries so it should be a pinch to scoop if we do this right.” 

“Let’s do this,” Ciri whispers back, and Jaskier smiles brightly at her before ducking out from their hiding spot. She creeps up to the corner, then, quick as a viper, sneaks around the building and disappears from view.

There’s a moment of tense silence, and then a heavy thud and the clatter of a body falling to the ground. Something drags over the dirt, and a moment later Jaskier’s head pops back out from the corner and she waves them towards her, still smiling. 

As Geralt and Ciri pass by her she points them to the wagon and it’s only another moment before Geralt is helping Ciri up to the seat. The horses are recognizable but whatever they’re hooked up to isn’t. It’s a perfectly cylindrical tank of some kind, so black it almost blends into the low light around them. He doesn’t have much more time to look at it, climbing up behind Ciri and then quickly leaning over her to give Jaskier a hand as she scales up the other side. She doesn’t take it, deftly sliding into a seat and taking up the reins with one hand, using the other to hook into the front of Geralt’s armor and yank him back down into the seat. He falls heavily onto his arse, thudding home and jolting the cart, ignoring Ciri’s muffled snickers to point the shotgun menacingly at the approaching guards. Or he would, if there were any. Jaskier scouted out her heist well.

They pull the horses around to face the main entrance, clear of any gate or barrier, but it seems that it’s not so clear of bodies. So, that’s where all the guards have gathered.

There are four or five men clustered under the single lantern hanging from the bottom of the sign that spans the width of the entrance, holding more guns and watching menacingly. They must be out of range or they would have started shooting already, but none of this seems to concern Jaskier.

“Uhh, Jaskier?” Ciri asks and then bobbles the reins as they’re shoved into her chest. 

Jaskier stands up, sights down her rifle, and shouts at Ciri, “Time to go!”

Ciri snaps the reins and the horses take off, jolting Geralt and Ciri but Jaskier leans into it: Her gun goes off, and a man falls, then another. They yell, diving for cover and then they’re shooting back, but they can’t recover from the lost advantage and Ciri keeps driving the horses forward. Jaskier is cackling, wildly filling the night air with her glee. 

Almost as quickly as it started it’s over: they’re through the gates and the yells and shots from behind them don’t seem to have landed on any of them or on the wagon, which is still trucking along gamely under Ciri’s direction. 

Jaskier drops down into her seat still laughing then takes the reins from Ciri. “Gotta love a good shoot-out,” she smiles, then calls over to Geralt, “Ain’t nobody hurt right?”

“We’re fine.” Geralt replies, reasonably sure that’s true. 

“Settle in then, it’s a bit of a ride from here.” 

“Are you always this insane?” Cir asks, leaning forward slightly to try and catch Jaskier’s gaze. 

“Oh, honey,” she laughs, reaching around Ciri to pull her into her side, shaking her roughly in her excitement. “You have _really_ got to meet Renfri.”

With that somewhat cryptic comment Jaskier releases Ciri, who immediately drops her head onto Geralt’s shoulder. 

“I like her,” she whispers into Geralt’s shoulder, and he laughs slightly, stretching his arm across the back of the little seat they’re in to let Ciri settle more comfortably.

Jaskier smiles over Ciri’s head at him, something unbearably soft in her gaze. Geralt smiles back, then closes his eyes to rest. What a strange day they’re having.

* * *

They travel for an indeterminable amount of time. Geralt had dozed off after the first hour and he doesn’t wake up again until they come to a creaking stop in front of a small barn, the moon already risen far above them. 

They’re deeper in the forest now, though Geralt has no idea what that means in relation to where they first showed up. There’s a river babbling somewhere just at the northern edge of his hearing, but he’s distracted from anything else by Ciri shifting on the bench next to him. She drops an elbow viciously into his kidney, making him wince as he gets up with a grumble. Her sleep-heavy body slithers all the way down to the seat of the bench, and she just barely catches herself before she hits it with her forehead first. She stands up too, stretching with a jaw-cracking yawn. 

“Where are we?” she mumbles, rubbing her eye with one fisted hand. 

“Just about five hundred yards south of the tracks heading into the flats. There’s a Brotherhood train coming through in a little less than an hour and we’re gonna do a stop n’board.” That’s Eskel’s voice, rising steadily in volume from their left, but it’s not the Eskel he knows. He has to remind himself of that because the instant relief he feels only makes the tension flooding back in when he does remember hurt all the more. The Eskel counterpart comes around the side of the tank and Geralt takes a second to look at him. He looks... good. Younger than Geralt has seen his own Eskel in a while, but he— he doesn’t have witcher eyes. In fact, Geralt can’t detect even a hint of anything witcher in his smell. He’s— well fuck, he’s human. Does this world not have witchers? 

Whether or not there are witchers here, this Eskel must have still led a similar enough life; his face is also scarred, though slightly less viciously than the Eskel from Geralt’s world. Instead of three jagged lines down his face it’s just one, an almost surgically neat scar that carves through his left eyebrow and then curls across his mouth, oddly slicing through his lips, though they’ve healed well enough. He smiles a slightly bifurcated grin at Geralt and then tips his hat back and holds out a hand to shake. Thankfully he doesn’t spit on it. 

“You really do look just like our Geralt. Older though. Can’t wait to tell the ornery bastard he goes silver before he’s even— what?” Eskel asks, looking Geralt up and down, “30? 40? When’d you lose the pigment?” 

Yeah. Definitely no witchers in this universe. Just... Jaskier, being as unfailingly accepting and kind and unafraid in every single iteration of himself. Geralt’s chest twinges with a sudden ache for his bard, and were he less used to moderating his behavior he might have reacted in some way to the sudden rush of warmth in his chest. 

“Lost it in the Trials. I’m over a thousand years old now I think.” Geralt deadpans. Eskel stops shaking his hand, but he doesn’t let go.

“You’re shitting me,” he replies, a properly gobsmacked expression stealing over his face. Geralt can’t help the smirk at being able to pull one over on him, even if it isn’t his Eskel. 

“Only a little.” Geralt smiles, giving up on the joke, and then Ciri pushes her way in between them, grinning like the little terror she is to squash it flat.

“He’s only just passed a hundred and ten a few years ago. Swear on my life,” she assures Eskel. 

Eskel raises one eyebrow in question at him and Geralt rolls his eyes in response then softens, smiling back. “I’m a Witcher, not a human. Longer life-spans.” 

“You don’t say,” Eskel replies, then belatedly drops Geralt’s hand from where he was still gripping it. “When Jask told me you were from a different universe, I thought she was pulling my leg.” 

“Stop besmirching my good name and come put those dumb muscles to work!” Jaskier’s voice interrupts them from inside the barn. “The damn door is stuck again!” 

“It wouldn’t be stuck if you had just oiled it before we left last time like Geralt told you to!” Eskel calls over his shoulder, and then jerks his neck at the barn to indicate they should head inside. Ciri and Geralt follow him into the interior; it’s decrepit, clearly falling apart and the only light shines in through holes in the roof. A shaft of moonlight is shining just slightly behind a dark shadow that must be Jaskier, straining against the effort of trying to pull open what appears to be a trap door, sunk into the floor they’re standing on. Eskel walks up and hip checks her out of the way, ignoring her flailing as she trips over the remnants of the collapsed roof. She pops back up, laughing again from the other side of the debris pile, and then whoops in excitement when Eskel finally yanks the door open with an awful screeching sound that grates against Geralt’s eardrums. 

“Get my sawed-off!” she calls out to Eskel, who’s already half-way crouched in the newly revealed space beneath the floor-boards. 

“I’m getting all the damned guns, that piece of shit can wait,” he grunts, pulling up two cloth wrapped bundles and dropping them in the cleared space next to his hip. Jaskier clambers out from where she’d fallen and sets to rifling through the bundles immediately. She tosses a stick of something to Ciri then shifts slightly out of the way as Eskel hoists himself out of the depression. Once he’s clear, he slams the door back down and stands up, dusting off his hands.

“Distribute the goods quickly, we’ve got to be in position before it gets there,” he declares, then pulls on the chain leading from his breast pocket to the one on the front of his red and black vest. A small shiny bauble is what comes out, something that might be a xenovox if this world had such things. Jaskier had looked at one just like it earlier. Eskel flips his open, then has to tilt it to catch the moonlight in order to read it— instantly he swears lowly and starts for the doors. “Grab and go, we’re short on time!” he calls out, as Jaskier scrambles to her feet with one of the bundles clutched to her chest. Ciri swoops in and scoops up the other one, then turns and follows them out. 

Geralt hops up into the cart and then turns around to accept the bundle from Jaskier so she can make her own way up. He does the same for Ciri, and then barely has time to sit down before Jaskier has the horses running, following Eskel and— _ah_ there’s Pegasus again, running along before the cart.

They ride hard and fast, booking it along a dirt path headed north. The journey passes quickly and all too-soon they’re pulling up to a crossroads. There're two parallel lines sunk into the path— some kind of metal tracks with wooden ties crossing at regular intervals. Large quantities of smithable metal must be much easier to come by in this universe if they can afford to sink it into the ground and make tanks out of it and slap it on roofs like this. Jaskier carefully guides the horses over the track and then pulls them to stop with the black tank behind them still crossing the tracks. 

“Uh,” Ciri starts, only for Jaskier to start chivvying her out of the seat. 

“Time to go, come on! Positions people!” she calls out, and Eskel laughs as he disappears into the scrub brush lining the path. Geralt is surprised; that’s a lot of horse and man to hide, but he’s almost completely hidden even to Geralt’s keener vision. 

Jaskier gets them off the wagon and once they’re crouching similarly hidden in the brush, she opens up the first of the bundles. “Ciri, you still got that dynamite I gave you?” 

“What, this?” she asks, proffering up the object Jaskier had tossed to her earlier. 

Jaskier snatches it from her with a quick smile before she returns to the bundle, open now on the ground between them. It’s full of at least three guns and even more of the little sticks she called dynamite, some of them tied in groups to each other. “Alright,” she says, handing out the rifles she unveiled to Ciri first, then Geralt. “Put the shotgun on your shoulder until we’re actually on the train. Rifle’s better for sighting and you won’t be close enough to do any real damage until we’re actually in the cars,” she tells Geralt as she hands him his. “Not that you’re gonna need it, more n’ likely won’t be any real shooting today, but you know me.” She grins with all her teeth up at them. “Nothing like being too prepared.” She’s pocketing the loose dynamite sticks as she says this, and she winks at them as she secures the last one in her belt. “I’m gonna go set this up on the track, be back in a jiffy.” She declares, gathering up the cloth with all the dynamite bundles inside. 

Geralt watches her go scurrying back to the track, pausing briefly to untie the horses that carted the tank for them. She guides the horses over to where Eskel disappeared, then hurries back before disappearing around the other side of the tank. Geralt and Ciri wait patiently, but the minutes tick by and she doesn't reappear. A lone owl hoots despondently, and a few moments later a wolf howls somewhere in the distance. The bushes to their left shake and Geralt scents Eskel a half second before his head pops out next to them.

“Hey,” he says, smiling at Ciri’s startled gasp. “That was the signal. Dynamite’s set and Lambert’s here.” Geralt finds it strangely comforting in just how many worlds he still has his brothers. “I figured Jask probably hadn’t actually filled you in on the plan, yet?” Eskel continues.

“She just disappeared towards the tracks.” Ciri says, and Eskel laughs then crawls slightly closer through the brush. 

“Yeah, she does that,” he says, “Jask is gonna try to get the train to stop without blowing it up first, ‘cause a ruckus like that tends to drop the Katakans on you faster than you can lick a rattlesnake; hence the tank.” Eskel directs their attention back to the tank, still parked neatly over the tracks. “Lambert, on the other hand,” he says pointing out the figure across the way from them, nothing more than a glinting pair of silvery eyes in the dark, “is purely here in case the dynamite fails. Nothing like fixing a wonky fuse by just bypassing it entirely.” 

“What?” Geralt asks, not following.

“Oh, he’s a sniper. If the fuse goes out before it actually reaches the dynamite we get no explosion and Jaskier gets her damn fool-self killed, so Lambert is there to shoot it himself if it comes down to it.” 

“Why the fuse at all, then?” Geralt asks, frowning across the way where he can just make out Lambert sighting down the track with a rifle, close to where they’d last seen Jaskier.

“Well, they work most of the time, and anyways Jaskier thinks Lambert calls it too early. This is the compromise.” 

“Compromise?” 

“Yeah, see originally, she didn’t want a backup at all. But our Geralt basically had himself a conniption about it until she relented to having the explosives on the half-shell.” 

“That’s... reckless.” Geralt says, and gamely ignores Eskel rolling his eyes at him.

“Yeah, that’s what our Geralt said, but you know Jask.” 

“Headstrong and more invested in being involved than being safe?” 

“Got it in one.” Eskel laughs, then smiles warmly at him. “You’re alright, partner, shame you won’t be around long enough to meet yourself. Or wouldn't that lead to some sort of paradox?” 

“That’s time-travel!” Lambert whisper-yells from across the way. Geralt is surprised he can hear, but then, it’s not like much else is making noise this night. Eskel snorts and flips off the bushes where Lambert is, before turning back to Ciri and Geralt. 

“Anyways, came over to get you on the up-and-up, not get distracted by the resident murder-twins.” 

“Don’t you go lumping me in with Renfri and Jask, I got class!” Lambert calls out again, but Eskel ignores him completely, pushing forward with the explanation.

“So basically, the train is going to come down them there tracks, and it’s gonna stop when it sees Jaskier and the tank in the way. Jask is going to convince the driver to abandon it.” He shrugs his shoulders, making a so-so gesture with his hand. “It’s just a freight run, so there oughtn’t be too many folks aboard. We get in, get our stuff, get out, and then nobody finds out about it until the train don’t show up at its next stop and we get a decent head start on the local silver.” 

“Silver?” Ciri asks, shifting her weight so she just bounces into Geralt. Geralt gently pushes her back upright, waiting on the answer too.

“S’what we call the lawmen. They’ve got themselves all decked out spur to pistol in silver. Used to be the monster-hunters round these parts ‘fore they all died out an’ they’re real proud of where they started, but, honest? They ain’t got much in common with where they come from.” 

Eskel spits hatefully on the ground, then pulls down the collar of his shirt to show off a silvery round scar just above his collar bone. “Shot me for trying to help a fella out with a debtor. Moral turpitude my ass,” he growls lowly, then shakes himself sharply. “Anyways, I could go on for far too long about those pieces of shit, but we got a train to rob and it should have already come through by my watch. Either I'm early or it’s late, and either way I don’t like it.” Eskel goes to melt back into the brush, but turns to face Geralt just before he goes. He indicates the shotgun then points a finger at Geralt’s chest, “Keep that up and stay sharp, friend. We haven't lost anyone on one of these in three years, and I intend to keep that record clean.” 

Feeling oddly touched, Geralt nods sharply, “Don’t worry about me,” he offers gruffly. “I’m hard to kill.” 

“Well,” Eskel huffs out a quiet laugh, “don’t go testing that now,” before he melts into the shadows again. 

A rumbling roar is starting to filter into Geralt’s range of hearing, filling the air with a deep throaty vibration. It’s followed by two short sharp whistles, and then Jaskier’s voice, whooping loudly in excitement. “Here we go, boys!” she shouts louder, and Geralt finally spots her climbing up the damn tank. She comes to stand on top of it, cutting an imposing silhouette against the moonlight. The rumbling gets louder, a whirring steadiness to the up and down of it’s vibrations that puts Geralt in mind of a creature running at them. At the end of the track the source of the rumble comes into view. This must be the train.

It’s huge, easily taller than Jaskier even standing on top of the tank, and nearly that wide across. There’s a large shining light pouring out of the front of it, illuminating the track ahead of it twice a wagon’s length over. None of them said that trains were this massive. It’s barreling down the track at a speed that even a witcher would struggle to keep up with, heading straight for Jaskier. Geralt tenses, ready to leap out and try to knock her off in time, but as he watches the train emits a horrible screeching sound, metal scraping against metal, and then that bellowing whistle shrieks out, an angry cry that shatters the night air just as efficiently as the squealing of its attempts to stop.

Seems there was no need for the dynamite after all. The train judders to a halt just inches from where Jaskier is standing her ground atop the tank. There’s a moment of tense stillness, only broken when the driver of the train leans out of the leading car with his own rifle and points it at Jaskier. She’s ready though and hers is pointed right back at him. 

“I ain’t got time fer’ outlaws or low-lifes so best git’ gone ‘fore I send ya’ straight to hell!” the driver yells, still hanging half out of his little window. Even from where he’s crouched in the bushes, Geralt can tell that this man is scared. His grip on the rifle is shaky at best, and his eyes won’t stay on Jaskier’s face, darting around looking for escape routes.

“I’ll make ya’ a deal, partner.” Jaskier counters, still sighting down her barrel at the driver. “You let us take this here train, and we let you walk away with your life and your weapon, no muss, no fuss, everyone goes home happy, huh?” The driver visibly wavers, dropping the rifle several inches before he suddenly pulls it back up.

“I ain't never been robbed by a woman outlaw before an’ I ain’t starting now!” he hisses, clearly gearing up to shoot.

The tandem crack of two rifle shots going off overlaps in the air, but the driver falls and Jaskier doesn’t. “Damn,” she mumbles, pulling off her hat to wipe sweat from her brow. “Hate when they get all weird about that.” 

Lambert and Eskel move out from their hiding spots, and Geralt and Ciri follow closely after, streaming towards the train. Jaskier hops down from the tank and trades her rifle for what must be the "sawed-off" she'd asked after earlier, winking at Geralt with a smile wide enough to split her face as she passes. She gets a boost from Eskel to get up to the train bed, then leans down and pulls him up after herself. Lambert hops up with help from both of them, and then Geralt just hauls himself up, laughing when Ciri shows off by portaling just behind them on the low flat train bed. Lambert swears, loudly and creatively when she appears right behind him, sending him stumbling forward in his shock. 

“Christ,” he says, then grabs Ciri around the neck and tucks her head under his arm so he can rough up her hair. “You’re a goddamn menace no matter where you’re from, huh.” He laughs before releasing her. 

“Couldn’t resist. Our Lambert doesn't even flinch anymore. I missed it.” She huffs, flushed and happy and then fixes her hair, still smiling. 

“Alright, let’s get this over with, we can reminisce around the fire later.” Eskel interrupts, smiling to ease the sting of his admonishment. 

“We’ve got bonds to loot.” Jaskier exclaims, rubbing her hands together and then striding forwards to the freight cars. Geralt follows, content to stick close until this is all over. 

It takes them just a little under fifteen minutes by Geralt’s count to empty the train of valuables. There were only two other people on the train, but they both consented to being tied up in exchange for their lives, and were left behind in a locked train car. They’ve got two sacks each of sheafs of paper that Jaskier keeps referring to as “cash” for whatever value that has. Maybe it’s this universe’s version of coin? It must be valuable if they’ve gone to all this trouble for it. The sacks are tied to the horses in no time at all. And then they’re riding north, hard as they rode here in the first place. Ciri and Geralt are on the two horses that pulled the cart, and it just makes Geralt miss Roach even more. They’ve been gone for so long now, bouncing between the universes, he has no idea what condition she’ll be in when they do get back.

He worries over Roach for most of the ride, able to ignore the discomfort of riding bareback only because he’s so consumed with weightier concerns entirely. They ride for a long time; the sun rises while they’re still traveling. They finally come to a stop just outside of what’s clearly a temporary campsite. There’s a little tent propped up and the remains of a hastily put-out fire and a wagon unhitched, with weeds growing through the slats of the wood, but not much else. Jaskier hops off her horse as they come to a stop next to the wagon and stretches her back dramatically. 

“Whew! What a day!” she exclaims, still stretching her back this way and that. Ciri and Geralt dismount as well, watching as Eskel and Lambert lead their horses over to the cart. They unload the bags of cash, tossing them into the back of the wagon, and then divest the other horses of their burdens as well. Jaskier stares at them over the campfire and then smiles at Geralt. “You know how to hunt?” she asks, appraisingly.

“Been walking the Path for longer than you’ve been alive.” He answers, relishing the chance to do something slightly more in his wheelhouse for once. He’s felt kind of useless for most of the time they’ve been here, watching Jaskier perform all the dangerous tasks that normally he would have been better equipped to handle were his own Jaskier by his side. 

“Great! You more of a bow hunter or a trapper?” she questions, already heading over to Pegasus, whom she greets with a solid pat to the neck and a little kiss to the nose. 

“Done my fair share of both,” He wonders what she’s got in store for him this time. She pulls a bow from her saddle in answer, then tosses it to him gently. 

“Come on,” she gestures towards the woods just a few hundred yards away from them. “We’ll go catch supper and these scamps can help each other get camp set up for the night.”

“Seems fair enough.” Geralt replies, surveying the camp one last time. Ciri nods at him, then waves when he still doesn't move, laughing at his reluctance.

“Go on,” she says, coming closer to try and physically bully him out of the camp and after Jaskier. “Go!” She pushes on his back, and he turns with the motion, offering resistance as she tries to force him to walk away. He pushes back, waiting until she puts all her weight against him. She grunts with the effort, then yells in surprise when he lets all his weight go dead, dropping on her. She holds up under it surprisingly well, staggering only slightly as she laughs before she shoves a shoulder into his back and really heaves, sending him stumbling forward as he chuckles. “You’re fucking heavy!” she laughs, exaggerating the effort it took her by leaning over her knees and panting loudly through her mirth.

“Mmm, I think it’s gravity,” he offers, trying not to laugh when she glares at him. He relents, smiling against her hair as he pulls her in to drop a kiss to the crown of her head. Gods, but he loves her, he thinks, and carefully ignores the space where Jaskier should be, playing along at her side, cracking jokes and teasing him too.

“Just get out of here already!” she cries, finally shoving him off of her as he relents. He spots the tiny smile she tries to hide by turning away though, so he merely waves and turns to head out to where Jaskier is patiently waiting for him, holding another bow she must have pulled from Eskel or Lambert’s horse. 

There’s something contemplative in her gaze as he starts walking towards her, but she hides it quickly behind a small smile. She remains silent as they start walking, waiting until they’re far enough into the prairie grass that camp is a toy sized version of itself behind them. “You’re good with her,” she opens up with, slowing the pace of her walk slightly. 

Geralt slows to match, wondering where exactly this is going. “Wasn’t always,” he says, thinking of those early years where he didn’t know her, resented her existence because it was proof of someone needing him, a concept that had once burdened him and now gave him reason to need in return. 

“It’s just...” Jaskier trails off, squinting at the setting sun. “‘s’just nice I suppose.” 

“Nice?”

“Yeah,” she elaborates, “It’s like, well— I don’t know.” 

Geralt frowns at her, generally unused to a quiet Jaskier, or one that’s unsure of what they mean to say. Usually it’s Geralt who needs help opening up. It’s surprisingly intimidating to be on this side of things. What does his Jaskier usually do to get _him_ to talk? 

“I—,” he tries, then frowns at himself, frustrated. “I don’t usually do much talking. But,” he forces himself to make eye contact, fighting through the fairly bemused smile on her face. “If you wanted to talk, I could,” he pauses, fighting down a blush of all the godsdamned reactions. “Do that.” he finishes lamely, regretting the whole endeavour entirely. Gods, he’s not meant for this. 

“Was that as painful for you as it was for me?” Jaskier asks, then doubles over in snorting laughter when he glares at her. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry, that wasn’t very lady-like of me,” she says, wiping tears that aren’t entirely mirth out of her eyes. “Ugh, I’m being really stupid, but this is kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity you know?” she sketches a quick look at him, then blows out her breath in a huge sigh, sending her bangs fluttering up to dance against the brim of her hat. “Sorry, I don’t rightly know what’s come over me,” she laughs shakily, taking her hat off and turning it in circles through her hands, sliding along the edge anxiously. “ _What would mother think_ ,” she mocks herself, sounding downright bitter for the first time in their short acquaintance. 

“What did you want to talk about?” Geralt asks, as gently as he knows how. He has the feeling if he let her she would continue to talk circles around whatever it is until the sun set entirely. 

She stops walking, still watching the sun instead of meeting his eyes. “Geralt and I— my Geralt, I mean,” she says, looking quickly at him and then back off to the horizon. “We kind of had a dust-up right ‘fore I came out here for this job.” 

Geralt rests the bow against the ground, setting his hands atop it as he waits for her to work herself up to whatever she needs to ask him. 

“An’,” she pauses to release a shaky breath, then offers him a watery smile, “an’ y’know it’s not like we ain’t fought before, he’s a right prickly bastard sometimes, and I’ve been told I got a temper, but um,” she smiles, tight-lipped, at him again, quick as a flash and then gone. “It’s just this was the first big one y’know? And I’m not,” she stops herself again, hands gesturing uselessly at the air in front of her, “‘m not used to him being gone I guess, ‘specially when I’m not sure he’s gonna want me back, after.” A fat tear drips off her chin, then another before she sniffs, rubbing her face in the crook of her elbow to wipe the wetness off. 

Geralt waits, letting her get whatever it is she needs to get out. She blows her nose on a handkerchief she pulls from the pocket of her trousers, then smiles at him weakly. It’s still watery but it’s less actively leaking like it was before. “I’m not him,” he offers finally, holding her gaze. “But we’ve been through... almost nine of these worlds so far, and in every one every version of me has loved every version of you, and I think—” he cuts himself off, almost afraid of what he’s about to reveal to both of them, “I think that’s more than just horse-shit.” 

She laughs like it’s been punched out of her. “That’s so romantic, are you sure you’re Geralt? Truly?” 

He smiles a little, both at himself and at her, but he’s not quite finished yet. “Destiny has interfered with my life in just about every possible place you could imagine. I used to think it was just pretty lies that people told to try and make sense of all the baseless cruelties the universe gives to us. And then I met Jaskier, and because of Jaskier, I got Ciri. That was destiny. I didn’t want to see it, but it’s not something I can ignore now. My Jaskier is... wonderful. And I love him with everything that makes me who I am. I can’t speak for your Geralt, not truly, but I can tell you that whatever it is you fought about?” He waits for her to look up at him, needing her to understand how seriously he believes in this. “Whatever the fight, I know he still loves you.” 

Her face has slowly been falling the longer he talks, something shuttering behind her eyes— at this she _breaks,_ shaking her head quickly as her breaths start rattling in her chest. “But I told him _no!_ ” she wails out suddenly, stomping her foot on the ground and throwing her fists to her sides, one hand still crumpled around the handkerchief. “He never asks for nothing but I don’t— I can’t.” She shakes her head, fists coming up to press against either side of her head. “I don’t want a child!” she says suddenly, desperately, then before he can address _that_ at all, she carries on, “It’s not _safe_ and I don’t want to be locked up for nine months while everyone treats me like I’m spun-glass, and I just don’t want to be a mother _either_ , I’m not—” she pauses, clearly on the verge of a panic attack, struggling with something undecipherable to Geralt, “— _maternal!_ ” she gasps out finally, wheezing and leaning forward beyond her balance. Geralt drops the bow, stepping forward to catch her before she falls entirely, easing them both down to the ground. 

“It’s okay,” he says, pulling her more securely into his arms. She wheezes erratically against his chest, and Geralt tries not to think of the djinn as he rubs circles into her back. “Hey, breathe with me,” he orders, exaggerating the _in_ and _out_ pull of his own breathing to try and jumpstart her into a normal rhythm.

It takes a few moments, but she matches him slowly, coming down from whatever fearful place she’d driven herself. “I’m sorry,” she laughs wetly, dragging her handkerchief across her face to wipe away the tears. “I don’t mean to make myself a burden,” Geralt winces, resolutely ignoring her phrasing to catch up with what she’s saying to him, “Guess I didn't realize how heavy that was sittin’ on me.” She’s pulling herself together, trying to patch up the leaking gaps of whatever anxiety had just come pouring out of her and Geralt has the sense that if he doesn’t say something to her now about it, she’ll bury it too deep to ever uncover. 

“You’re not a burden.” She grimaces at him as he says that, but he just raises one eyebrow in response. “You’re not. I felt the same way before I got Cirilla.” 

“What, that you didn’t want to be a mother?” She laughs turning away from him, “Yeah, _great,_ I’m sure that’s something you’ve had hammered into you from birth as the only thing you were good for, glad to know that’s a thing you’ve felt, _Geralt.”_ She hisses at him, standing up to stomp back over to where her hat had fallen earlier when she started crying. 

“Okay,” he says, sensing he’s stepped into a more sensitive subject than he was prepared for. “Not the same.” He’ll relent on this, especially because he thinks not wanting a child isn’t really what Jaskier is upset about. “You know it’s okay to—” he grimaces, aware that he’s massively overstepping here but also at a loss for how else he could have this conversation without doing so, “It’s okay to say no. Even to people you love. _Especially_ to people you love.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” she says, a clearly reflexive reaction if the comical way she slaps a hand over her mouth is any indication. 

“Sore spot?” he asks, purposely staying on the ground. He doesn't want to crowd her now, not when she’s so off-kilter. 

“You could say that,” she sighs, dropping back down to the ground to sit cross-legged a few feet from him. She picks at the grass, wipes her face again, and then blows out all the breath in her lungs on one solid exhale, running one hand through her hair to brush it out of her face where it fell when she took off her hat. “I really am sorry,” she flashes him a tiny smile, gripping her hat too tightly in one hand and reflexively rubbing her index finger and thumb of the other hand together in small circles. His Jaskier does that too, when he’s upset; what a small thing to be so universally constant.

“You don’t need to be.” 

“Hmm,” she huffs out half a laugh then squints at him, “We still need to catch dinner.” 

“Hmm,” he replies, matching her energy. “We do.” 

“I suppose first you want to make sure I’m okay, and not just changing the subject to avoid being honest with you?” she asks, firmly squashing her hat back on her head. “Oh, don’t look so shocked,” she continues, in reaction to his raised eyebrows, “I _know_ you, same as you know me. And you’re right. No matter how good with children you or my Geralt may be, I don’t want none and it’s gonna have to be okay that I don’t,” she nods decisively, firming her jaw with the force of her resolve. “We’ll just work through it together. I always forget that we’re better _with_ each other than we are apart.” 

She stands up, then reaches down and offers him a hand as well. She hauls him to his feet with surprising strength, and he’s shocked for the first time to notice that they’re of a height to each other. She really is stunningly similar to his Jaskier.

They start walking towards the woods again, and neither one of them says anything as they approach the edges. Right before they head in, Jaskier stops him, placing one hand against his chest. She looks up at him from underneath the brim of her hat and smiles softly; a look he recognizes from his Jaskier as his ’ _Geralt, I am going to say something genuine and you are going to just accept it’_ face. 

“Thank you,” she says, soft and loaded with the hint of the stress she’s still carrying with her. “Destiny has a mighty strange way of operating in these parts; seems like an awful lot of trouble to put you in my path, but I sure am glad to have met you— Or well, another version of you, anyways.” 

“Well, they do say it works in mysterious ways,” he offers, electing to ignore the more serious parts of her statement.

“Right, you are,” she smiles at him, clearly aware of his game. Then, lighting fast, she darts forward to crush him into a hug. “Thank you,” she whispers again, and he smiles against her ear where it’s squished into his face, inhaling the chamomile and bergamot and horse scent of her, something inherently Jaskier buried deep underneath. His chest aches as she draws back from him, smiling quietly at him. She pats his shoulder firmly twice, then turns back to face the woods. “Come on,” she says, already scanning the ground for deer tracks. “There’ll be supper and stories and maybe a song when we get back to camp if you’re lucky. Then we can send you off in the morning, after a good night’s rest.” 

He inhales deeply, feeling the weight of their conversation rise in his chest, and then exhaling it in one sustained breath, releasing the lingering tension with it. That sounds nice. 

* * *

It doesn’t take them too much time to hunt up a deer, full as these woods are with wildlife. Geralt hauls it back to camp, (Jaskier had been halfway to heaving it across her shoulders before he gently offered to take it from her. She’d taken one look at his black shirt, then one at her much neater shirt and vest combo and laughed herself into a fit about it. But she’d relented to letting him carry the spoils of their hunt back to camp.) Lambert had taken it and skinned and dressed it, while Eskel and Ciri set up a little metal grate over the fire to cook the venison on. This universe is full of small marvels. 

The venison is hot and well-seasoned and fucking delicious; it’s one of the better meals they’ve managed to have on this godsforsaken journey. They swap stories and share laughs, and Jaskier, as promised, sings them a song. Lambert pulls out a bottle of something he calls “moonshine” and they pass around cups of the noxious brew and laugh when Ciri splutters around the first mouthful of hers, and then laugh even harder when Geralt nearly vomits around the burn of his cupful. Jaskier throws hers back like a shot and then demands that Ciri dance with her, throwing her little stringed instrument into Eskel’s lap to demand he keep up the tune. He’s surprisingly talented, and as his and Lambert’s voices twine together on a simple melody, Geralt sips more of the moonshine and watches the girls dance, letting the warmth in his chest fill up his lungs. Tomorrow they’ll leave, off to the next universe, off to find Jaskier. They’ll get him back. 

For tonight they’re going to rest, and laugh, and sing with each other, sharing the truths that spread across their universes and bind them all together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked this it all please let me know! 
> 
> Betaed by the lovely ItJ Server without whom this would not have been nearly as good as it is :D
> 
> ALSO THERE IS ART!!!!!! [CHECK HER OUT!!!!](https://buffskierights.tumblr.com/post/630275382804971520/for-teamfreehoodiess-rdr2-au-fem-cowboy)  
> KHansen created this absolutely stunningly gorgeous drawing of cowgirl/boyskier and UHHHH I'm crying it's fantastic pls go if you want to see her click the link, and reblog the art!
> 
> follow me on [tumblr](https://teamfreehoodies.tumblr.com/) for updates on _may we stand unshaken (amidst the crash of worlds)_ which is the full fic of the RDR2!AU coming to you.... at some point. Eventually. Probably before or around next summer honestly. Teaching in 2020 continues to be a nightmare, but I write fic to cope so no promises either way.


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